The Answer
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Set shortly after the movie. Sarah calls Jareth back to find out the real reason why he took Toby.


The Answer

"Goblin King, Goblin King, return to me," Sarah called out her window into the night, she waited a moment for any sign of Jareth and there was none, "Damn you bastard, where are you?"

It was a couple of weeks after she and Toby had returned home, after she had defeated Jareth's 13 hour labyrinth to rescue her stepbrother. Now she took a different approach when she was asked to stay home and watch Toby while their parents went out for the night; she didn't complain and she didn't resent her baby stepbrother after the ordeal she had gone through in losing him and getting him back. In the two weeks that followed, Sarah had found herself with plenty of time to think in closer details about what had happened back in Goblin City and Jareth's castle. It had come to her shortly, and she still had her suspicions about it all, but now she wanted Jareth back to confront him face to face about it all.

"Where the hell are you, Jareth?" she asked as her eyes scanned through the night sky, looking for any sign of him.

And then she saw it, that same white owl that had entered her home two weeks ago. It flapped its wings and approached the window and then before Sarah's eyes it transformed into Jareth, the Goblin King in his full form, with his long spikey hair and wearing his black gloves and dressed in his long black coat with the tall collar over his white shirt and gray pants.

"What do you want now, Sarah?" he asked, trying to look bored and annoyed at having come to see her, but he wasn't convincing. Sarah could tell he was just dying to find out why he had been summoned again.

"I want some answers," she said.

Jareth shook his head sadly and told her, "Wrong person."

"No, you!" Sarah said as she walked over to him, "I've been doing a lot of thinking since I got back…and there's something I want to know."

Jareth nonchalantly folded his arms to his chest, trying to look inconvenienced, "What?"

She looked him dead in the eyes, there still a tinge of anger showing in hers as she glared at him and demanded to know, "Why did you really come here that night? Why did you come and take Toby away from me?"

"Because you asked me to," he answered.

"No," Sarah shook her head, "It's more than that, isn't it?" He said nothing and hardly moved but in the fraction that he did in slightly turning away from her, she could tell she had struck a nerve. She decided to crowd in on him and she took a step over towards him, "If that was all it was, you would have had no problem giving him back to me when I asked you. You came to take Toby away for a specific reason, didn't you?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," Jareth told her as he turned away from her again, "I think you've been reading too many fantasy books."

"You _wanted_ Toby, that's what it is, isn't it?" Sarah asked, though she could feel it in her bones that she was right, "It didn't matter what I said, you wanted to take Toby, and you wanted to keep him!"

That, he couldn't deny since he had made it quite well known to everybody at the time.

"You _wanted_ to keep Toby, otherwise you wouldn't have made me go through the labyrinth to get him back…" she took another step closer to him and despite his attempts to turn away from her, there she was at every point, in his face, "You were hoping I would fail the maze so you could keep Toby to yourself and turn him into a goblin, like you!"

Jareth turned around with his back to her. Though Sarah couldn't see it, his top lip was curling like he was getting ready to show his teeth and snarl like a wild animal, and his eyes were narrowing into tiny slits.

"Remember what you said to me, Jareth?" she asked him, "When I said it wasn't fair…you said that I said that so much, you wondered what my basis for comparison was…you didn't think I had any idea what was and wasn't fair…but you did?" He didn't answer her, "You seem to consider yourself an expert on what's fair and what isn't. Why?"

Sarah got up behind him and said in a quiet tone, "Tell me, Jareth…_why_ is it none of the other goblins look like you? Why do you look more like a normal human instead of a goblin?"

He had no answer for that one, nor did he attempt any further movements away from her, he just stood with his back to her and refused to turn around.

"Is that what happened to you?" Sarah asked.

"Just because I was going to turn him into a goblin," Jareth finally spoke as he turned back around to face her, defiance written all over his face, "Doesn't mean he would've been one of those three feet tall furball freaks."

"So that's it," Sarah said, "You needed another human around you, and a baby like Toby couldn't fight you to get away. Is that what it was? Somebody wished you away to that place when you were a baby?"

Jareth closed his eyes and seemed to be restraining himself from doing what he was thinking of. Sarah could see him biting the insides of his cheeks and thought if he didn't stop it soon, he'd swallow them entirely. Finally he separated his jaws and opened his eyes and glared at her, and he reached out towards her and she thought he was trying to grab her, but instead he was pointing at her.

"You might have noticed when you were there, my kind doesn't exactly grow on trees," he told her, "Do you have any idea how long I've been there? Do you have any idea how our aging process works? I _should_ only be 38 years old…but because of the time difference and the way people age in that world, I'm over 800 years old…and believe me, when you live there that long, you _feel_ it. Time doesn't fly in the goblin world, Sarah, it drags, every day is an eternity."

Sarah was starting to get it, all that time passing, alone, "Wasn't there ever anyone else who was wished away to the goblins while you were there?"

Jareth shook his head grimly, "Very rarely…and I never got the chance like I had with Toby, they were all older children, first terrified, then defiant…nobody I could keep and raise for my own."

"But I don't get it," Sarah said, "Couldn't you have just entered this world and taken anyone you wanted at any time?"

"No!" Jareth replied, "Don't you get it? You _had to say the right words_! That's how it was when I was taken there centuries ago, it's never changed. I spent hundreds of years waiting, hoping somebody would say them."

"That's why you jumped on the chance of having Toby," Sarah realized, "There were no human women in the Goblin City, you couldn't marry and have any children of your own, so you had to take one. That's why you hoped you could get me to forget all about Toby, so you'd win and could keep him for yourself."

Jareth turned away from her again and refused to answer her. But Sarah knew she was right, just as she knew she was right about what she was going to say to him next, "You're not really evil, Jareth…you're just some miserable kid who tries to get his way at any cost…I feel sorry for you, you poor bastard."

That did it. He spun around and scowled at her and told her, "Oh yeah? Well don't, I don't need your sympathy, I don't need anything from you!"

"Except my brother," Sarah told him.

"Damn you, Sarah," Jareth said to her, the final straw obviously broken in him, "You gave him to me, why did you have to want him back?"

For the first time that evening, Sarah didn't know what to say. She looked at him and said the only thing she could think of, "I'm sorry."

"I told you I don't want your sympathy, I have no use for it," Jareth told her as he stormed over to the open window, "Don't call on me again."

Sarah folded her arms and held them to her chest as she started to feel cold, "How miserable you must be, to have all that power and be in command of so much and have no one to enjoy it with."

Jareth stopped in his tracks for a second and said only, "Now you know the basis for comparison."

"But if you were born human, couldn't you just leave the Goblin City and come back here?" Sarah asked him.

"No," he answered as he resumed heading to the window, "I've been out of this world too long, I have no place here."

He was almost to the windowsill when Sarah called out, "Jareth, stop, wait!"

He did stop, but he wouldn't turn around to see what she wanted, "What?" he demanded to know.

Sarah thought for a moment about what she was going to say next. Slowly, she walked up behind him and said, "What does somebody's word mean to a goblin? If you give your word on something, do you have to do it or can you just disregard it as you please?"

Jareth hadn't counted on that question. He turned his head around to look at her and asked, "Why?"

* * *

Sarah opened the door to her parents' bedroom and headed in but didn't turn on the lights. Toby had finally fallen asleep a short while ago and she didn't want to wake him up again. Jareth walked in behind her and they went over to the crib.

"Just remember," Sarah told him warningly, "I defeated you once before, if you get any smart ideas, I'll come back to Goblin City and make you suffer worse than the last time."

Jareth paid little attention to her and stood by the crib, looking down at the sleeping child, who hadn't a care in the world. He reached into the crib and his glove clad hands wrapped around the baby boy and gently lifted him up out of the crib, amazingly enough, Toby didn't wake up. Jareth held Toby for a few minutes, looking down at the sleeping child, and during which time he said nothing but just thought about all the what ifs and what could've been and what almost was, and finally, though he struggled with himself the entire time, he laid Toby back down in his crib and left the room. Sarah followed after him and said, "I'm sorry, Jareth, I wish there was something I could do."

Jareth grumbled something to himself and then said to her, "I just hope the next teenaged girl who wishes her brother away is more selfish than you proved to be."

Oddly enough, Sarah found herself agreeing with him. "I hope so too. Goodbye, Jareth…oddly enough, I'm going to miss you."

He wouldn't say anything to her but she could tell that he was going to miss her as well. She watched as he turned back into a white owl and flew off into the night. When he was finally out of sight, Sarah turned away from the window and headed back to her own room to go to bed. One of the last things she thought before she fell asleep was that she hoped that someday, Jareth finally found what he had wanted for so long, and she hoped for his sake that it would be soon. How horrible it must've been to wait around for hundreds of years, waiting, hoping somebody else like him would come and nobody did. Thinking about it like that, Sarah guessed she couldn't blame Jareth for wanting to keep Toby.

The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she had done the right thing. Analyzing the way her life was currently, her father and stepmother didn't care about her, they didn't know anything about her, she didn't have a lot of friends…and she started to wonder if it would've really been so horrible if she and Toby had stayed in the Goblin City. At least there she had friends with Hoggle and Ludo and Didymus, and Jareth had had Toby for almost 13 hours and never harmed him…would it really have been so bad if they had only stayed there? She wondered.


End file.
